Out of the Woods
by Doc M
Summary: Updated! 'Village' sequel, with 'Kaspar Hauser' overtones - but I plan a happier outcome. New: Ivy shares her fears with Lucius; plans are made for Noah's future; and Jay speculates wildly. (Some corrections after getting the DVD)
1. Ranger Lupinski Follows a Trail

_**Author's Note:**_ The usual disclaimers to be taken as read. I was distressed at the fate of the most vulnerable Villager, and decided to do something about it. (My great-granduncle used to rescue injured wild birds from the woods near his house, and nurse them back to health. I feel the same about various fragile characters...) Thanks to Embeth for several points about the medical training of Rangers, and for the talk of LARPS!

**OUT OF THE WOODS**

**1: Ranger Lupinski follows a trail**

Kevin Lupinski waited in the car until he was sure that the girl was out of earshot; then he climbed over the fence after her. He took his radio, his torch, his basic First Aid kit. If someone was injured, as she and her note had indicated, then she should have let him accompany her. After all, he had EMT Wilderness certification - not up to Jay's level of paramedic training, but still -

The imprint of the girl's boots in the soft mud led him on. A gravelled track, much overgrown but still discernible, heading off into the trees. It was nonsense that she could live in here. He knew from an old map in Jay's office that there had been a settlement in the area over a hundred years ago - a small township called Covington - but it had been abandoned back in the Depression. Probably a few ruins remained hidden in the depths of the forest, but none of the Rangers had ever seen them.

'Ivy Elizabeth Walker': probably that was not her real name. She must have seized upon 'Walker' from a park signboard or the side of his car, on the spur of the moment.

And why dress like something from a Laura Ingalls Wilder theme-party? She had carried an old pocket watch, too, but he could not read the worn inscription. He knew of no Amish or Mennonites in these parts. LARPs, he thought: Live-Action Role-Players. He had encountered some at the previous park where he had worked: crazy costumes and 'swords' made of padded plastic tubes, chasing around yelling "Have at thee, varlet" It looked kind of fun, but not for the nesting birds he was supposed to be protecting, so he had told them to go to - well, Gondor, Ruritania, Graustark, Transylvania, wherever. Anywhere but Pennsylvania.

Strange, though, the way she seemed to look right through him. There had been something odd in her manner of speech, too...

Stoned, he thought. He was beginning to regret having given her prescription-drugs. But if someone was ill, or had had an accident, as she had claimed - and whoever had written the instructions on the note had seemed to know what he or she was talking about... As a Ranger, he had a duty.

He trudged on, pondering the enigmatic 'Ivy Walker' all the while.

He would have been wiser to watch his footing. The light was beginning to fade, and the ground was soft from the heavy rain. He stumbled forward, feeling the soil begin to give way beneath his weight. He gasped, and seized hold of a tree-stump to stop himself falling. An old hunter's trap: the woods were probably full of them. No wonder the park was fenced off and guarded: health and safety regulations. They could be sued into oblivion if anyone -

He drew a deep breath, relieved to have saved himself.

Then he heard it: a faint sound, the feeble whimpering of an injured animal. He shone his torch down into the pit.

"What the...?"

"- Jay! It's Kevin! Yeah, I've crossed the fence - sure, I know, I know, the animals! But there's been an accident. That girl - she told me... There's a kid fallen in a trap - it looks bad! He's, erm, wearing a _monster suit_..."

_**To be continued:** Is Kevin in time to save Noah?_


	2. A Creature Sloughs its Skin

**2: A Creature Sloughs its Skin**

Lights and noise.

Bright light stabbing through the darkness.

Pain: so much pain, with every breath - in his shoulder-blades and across his chest.

He shouldn't have stolen the Creature's skin... made them angry. He had found a snake's sloughed skin once, on the Resting Rock, and played with it, marvelling at the intricate pattern of scales. Nothing bad had happened to him after that, but that was snakes for you: they minded their own business.

"LARPs... Think it's an adventure playground..." said a voice, anxious under the scorn. "How bad is the bleeding?"

Scissors were cutting through the Creature's hide, cutting through the shirt beneath. The boy felt the cool air against his bare shoulder and side. Unable to cry out, he winced as a hand ran over the bruised flesh.

"His dumb Halloween costume's made things worse... Busted ribs," said a second voice.

He could hear them, but none of it made sense. The men were speaking much faster than anyone in the village, too fast for him to understand all the words. Better not to try... His mind began to drift. He wanted to sleep, to stop the hurting...

"Hold on there, kid. Hold on! You're gonna be fine!"

With an effort, he focussed on the faces leaning over him: one white, one brown, both strangers. He opened his mouth, but only a choking cough emerged.

"Pneumothorax: I don't think he can wait." (Spoken grimly.)

"Better do it, then: we can give him a shot, can't we?"

Something sharp pierced the right side of his chest. He groaned, but then felt a fiercer pain close by: a cut, and then something blunt being pushed in ever deeper...

The darkness closed in again. This time he did not resist. He let it wrap around him, like the warm patchwork quilt on his bed; like the lullaby Ivy Walker used to sing when he was frightened and lonely.

_**To be continued:** Meanwhile in Covington: a son saved, a son lost._


	3. In Greenwood He Lies Slain

_Author's Note: _The title of this chapter derives from a traditional song, The Unquiet Grave. I take the view that Ivy's 'colours' are partly derived from her last faint vestiges of sight, and largely from synaesthesia (An acquaintance of mine at university used to hear voices and sounds as colours. She wouldn't tell me what my colour was, though!)

**3: In Greenwood He Lies Slain**

It seemed to Ivy that all of Covington had turned out to welcome her home from her adventuring. Weary, muddied, bedraggled - yet elated - she made her way through the throng, bearing the precious medicines.

They jostled against her, asking question after question, so rapidly that she could scarce separate the speakers' colours from each other, and scarce had chance to answer.

- "How did you find your way through the woods?"

- "What are The Towns like?"

- "Did you find Those We Don't Speak Of?"

- "Did they try to harm you?"

"Yes, there was one," she said breathlessly. "It gave chase, but I outwitted it, and it fell into a pit!"

"You killed it?" asked a small boy, marvelling at her courage.

"I – I suppose I did..." She could not be certain: all she knew for sure was that it had fallen and had been unable to pursue her further. "But I must to the Widow Hunt's, with the medicines! Is Lucius ?"

"He lives yet!" said her older sister Kitty. "Father and some of the Elders are with him now."

The boy bounded ahead to tell them of her return and of her brave deeds. Kitty wept on her shoulder, relieved to have her home again. She had deliberately spoiled Christop's breakfast in revenge for his abandonment of Ivy – although she was glad enough at heart that he had returned unharmed.

But when Ivy reached Lucius's house, she sensed that _something_ was amiss. Her father, and Alice Hunt, and Dr Crane (Kitty's father-in-law),greeted her warmly and praised her. And yet... a heavy fog was muting all their colours. Mr and Mrs Percy were there too (faint, faint - she could scarcely see the dim glow about them), but they spoke only a clipped, formal farewell before leaving to walk home in silence.

"I shall speak with you later, Robert!" said Father as they departed.

"Will they tell Noah that I am returned?" Ivy asked. "I _know_ he has done wrong; I _know_ he is in the Quiet Room, but... I should like him to hear of this."

"Yes," Father said quietly. "He will be told."

Dr Crane cleared his throat in apparent disapproval.

Of course, she thought: I should not speak of Noah in Mrs Hunt's presence. It is not seemly, given the grief that he has caused her.

"Now, Ivy, let us see these medicines..." The doctor took the package from her.

"The man I met in The Towns was very kind. His name is Kevin. He seemed to know what was needed at once. There was a strange noise when he went away, but he came back very quickly. I think he may have used some sort of railroad." Father had taught about the railroad in school. Being unable to see the pictures in the schoolbooks, she found it hard to understand how it worked, and since there was not one for miles around, she had paid little attention to the subject. She did remember, though, that steam locomotives ran faster than a horse, and were noisy and smelly.

There was a pause: she guessed that Dr Crane must be reading the labels on the bottles. "Good! Well done, girl! Well done indeed!"

"We should go home now," Father told her. "Victor has work to do."

"But I should like to stay here. To be with Lucius."

"You are weary and bemired from your journey, daughter: you need to rest."

"Lucius needs me!"

"Our good doctor can do more for him at this time. You shall come back later, once you have bathed and eaten. Your mother is making cobbler – for I'm sure you are in need of a hearty meal!"

And he put his arm around her shoulders, and guided her home - for she was, in truth, _very_ weary.

* * *

After bathing, and changing her clothes, Ivy ate two large helpings of cobbler, and dozed awhile beside the fire. 

When she awoke, she was aware of her father sitting in his chair facing her: his presence, or 'colour' as she sometimes tried to define it. There seemed a charge around him, like the atmosphere you sometimes feel before a thunderstorm.

"They tell me," he said gravely, "that you encountered Those We Don't Speak Of; is it true?"

"I met one – which gave chase. I had fallen into a hole a little before then, and found the place again – there was a large and twisted tree-stump, which I knew by touch. So I stood a moment, asif to play the Stump Game, then stepped aside sothat it was the Creature that fell. It was not far from the start of the overgrown path."

"I see..."

"But Father – what you said before, about the Creatures being farce – "

"_That_ was the lie, my dear: I did not want you to be afraid. What hangs in the Old Shedare but dried carcasses, the hides of Creatures we slew many years past, in the days before the Truce." He laughed a little. "None of the Elders left the village while you were gone, that I do assure you. And none are missing."

And yet... She knew instinctively that he was concealing something. Had he not also told her that The Towns were filled with greed, and wickedness and cruelty? And then she had met with Kevin, who was good and helpful, and knew where to find medicines, without even taking her grandfather's watch in barter. She no longer knew how much to believe fromher father'slips.

"You were right, Ivy. You should stay the night at Mrs Hunt's. Kitty will take the little ones home with her to the Cranes', so that they will not disturb you when you return."

"And you, Father?"

"I must speak with Robert Percy, then with August Nicholson. Council matters, that is all."

* * *

Ivy walked arm-in-arm with her mother over to the Hunts' cottage. "Are you going to stay, too?" 

"No," answered Tabitha curtly. She knew - in such a small community, how could she not- the looks cast between her husband and the Widow Hunt. She endured with a sad dignity - but she did not actively seek out the widow's company. "I - I'm going to call upon the Percys. Vivian wants someone to pray with her this night... She is... in low spirits."

"I understand."

"She has suffered enough through that child over the years... She blames herself for - for what has happened."

"But there lies no blame on her!"

Tabitha bowed her head. "She thinks she might have broken the news of your betrothal more... tenderly. He was the last to hear of it."

Ivy did not reply. She thought: I had courage enough to venture to The Towns; why did I lack the courage for _that_?

* * *

She stayed all night by Lucius's bedside, holding his hand to comfort, while his mother tended him. The young man had been given some medicine, the dose to be repeated every four hours or so. At first he seemed feverish, and she feared that it had made him worse, not better; but by sun-up, he was sleeping peacefully. 

Alice sighed. "You should go home and get some sleep yourself now, Ivy."

"Should we not first tell Dr Crane?" the girl asked.

"I doubt he will be back ere dusk. Your father and Mr Nicholson likewise."

"Why? Where have they gone? Father said he had Council business -"

Alice did not answer immediately. She was glad that the girl could not see the tension in her face, the evasive darting of her eyes.

"Your father - I - all of the Elders - we wished to spare you this, but it cannot be hidden... While you were gone to The Towns, Those We Don't Speak Of attacked by stealth."

"What?"

"They... _burrowed_ up through the floor of the schoolhouse. Beneath the Quiet Room."

She gasped. "Noah ?"

"He was... abducted." Alice wrung her sinewy hands in the lap of her apron. What did another falsehood matter? The truth would have been too cruel. "We do not know where he is taken. Or if he lives. Your father has taken the doctor and Mr Nicholson to seek him in the woods."

Ivy gave a small cry, like a bird in a snare.

The last time she had met with Noah, she had beaten him for wounding Lucius. She had felt remorse for it in the hours, the days since. He had done a heinous wrong, yes; he had almost slain her beloved - his own dear friend, yes. But he had no more reason or judgement than a young child. And she would not have struck a child, or even a dog, so. The memory of his sobbing beneath her blows tormented her almost as cruelly as the colourless silence in the workshop when she had found Lucius stabbed, bleeding out his life...

"It is not possible," she said, trying to remain calm.

She was struggling to reconcile her father's contradictory explanations of the Creatures with her encounter in the forest. Perhaps he had indeed lied to her at the Old Shed Which Must Not Be Used, so that she would not be afraid; or perhaps...? If the Creatures truly were the Elders in farce, might they not have taken him themselves, in punishment for attacking Lucius? In which case, who or what had she killed?

"I wished no such great harm on him! Nor would Lucius wish it, if he -"

She felt a hand curl gently around hers on the quilt: a strong, warm hand.

"Ivy, what would I not wish...?"

"My dearest!"

And in a mixture of joy and grief, she buried her face in the pillow beside his. Her salt tears dampened his dark hair.

* * *

"The gnarled tree-stump... This must be the trap she meant," said Edward Walker, holding up his lantern: the shaded flame flickered through the rainy darkness beneath the branches. 

The rubber mask of the Creature's costume stared up like a grotesque severed head amid the mud and puddles at the bottom of the pit.

"The boy can't have got far in the dark. He'd be terrified, and after such a fall, I doubt he has the strength," Dr Crane said.

Walker saw that the surface of the ground was disturbed, the grasses and low-growing plants trodden down. "But someone else has been here."

"Some_one_ - or some_thing_!" Nicholson sounded anxious.

Someone or something carrying a burden. Ridged footprints, deep, but blurring in the rain. Following them to the bracken and trampled grass by the start of the overgrown track, they found remnants of the Creature costume: a few porcupine quills, animal bones and feathers; grey fur; shreds of scarlet mantle, cut with a blade - not torn; a piece from a shirt, also cut. All blotched with blood.

Victor Crane's heart sank. How many times over the years had he violated his Hippocratic Oath for the sake of that other oath which bound him to Edward Walker? The deaths he could have prevented, _if only_... The illnesses, the disabilities he could have treated, or at least alleviated, _if only_... These pathetic scraps of fancy dress were evidence of his failure as a doctor, as a man. But he clung to a hope just as flimsy. "Perhaps the man who helped Ivy...?"

"Perhaps, perhaps..." pondered Nicholson. "But that boy could betray us all if -"

"And who would believe _him_, of all people?" Walker said. "No, no... We can take some comfort from that." Thinking on his feet; thinking of another lie, another layer to the mythology... "From the blood, he must be wounded – perhaps dying or dead. Yes... As I said before. Dead. Killed by the Creatures. His death makes our stories true."

"And his parents?" asked Crane. "Is he to be dead to them also?"

"_Especially_ to them." Walker smiled his disturbingly gentle smile. "It is kinder, surely, than to let them wonder and hope in vain."

* * *

On returning to the village, Walker convened a special meeting of the Council, which the whole village was ordered to attend. Only Alice Hunt, among the Council, was excused, to remain at her son's bedside. Ivy sat with her younger sisters, beside Kitty and Christop. 

"Those We Don't Speak Of have devoured Noah Percy. He was no longer innocent enough for them to spare him." He held up the bloodstained piece of the missing youth's shirt. Ivy heard a collective gasp, sensed a collective shudder of dread and revulsion. "This is all that they left of him," her father continued. "It is a warning to all, to keep within the laws, and within our borders."

A thud, a clatter of a chair. Vivian Percy slumped to the floor in a dead faint. Mrs Clack, Mrs Crane and Tabitha Walker gathered around her as her husband helped her up.

"Oh, the poor woman!" exclaimed Kitty. "What a frightful shock! And poor Noah - But perhaps it is for the best, after all..."

But Ivy stared straight ahead, sightless, yet seeing more clearly than her sister ever would. Father was telling another falsehood. The lie was in his voice, changing his colour. And Noah?

Until just a few days ago, he had been her dearest friend, besides Lucius. She would _know_ if he were dead.

He is _alive_, she thought; but she did not know whether to be glad of it, or fearful.

_**To be continued:**_ _Somehow I don't think he's in Covington any more_...


	4. Lost Boy

_**Author's Note:**_ Thanks for the reviews! I've given Jay the surname of an old friend of mine who was originally from Kerala in India. Re: Vivian's bad knitting: _yes_, I noticed that _awful_ home-made scarf Noah was wearing...

**4: Lost Boy**

Jay had to thump the side of the hot-drinks vending-machine to make it work. "I hope the rest of the equipment here's not in the same state!" he said, watching the sludgy-looking coffee splutter into the plastic cup.

"It's horrible, anyway!" Kevin grimaced as he drank. He'd never yet known a hospital waiting-room where you could get a decent coffee. "I wonder how much longer they'll be?"

"If he hadn't made it, they'd have been out sooner," his boss observed.

Another twenty minutes passed before a door swung open and a white-coated doctor emerged: a slight, dark, sharp-faced woman.

"So, you're the guys who saved the boy at the Wildlife Preserve?"

"We are: I'm Chief Ranger George, and this is Ranger Lupinski."

"Pleased to meet you; I'm Dr Morelli. Under the circumstances, you did well with that chest-drain!"

"How _is_ 'Red Riding Hood'?"

"Stable," she answered (not suspecting that this was the first time _that_ word had ever been used of her patient). "We've fixed up the ribs and stopped the internal bleeding: the lung should heal. Thankfully, no other bones are broken. Bad bruising, mild concussion. And his shoulders are cut pretty badly: nothing dangerous, but - a bit messy."

"You're telling _me_!" Kevin mumbled under his breath: his and Jay's uniforms were stained from tending the boy. The spines stitched into the back of his red robe had torn him across the shoulder-blades, and when Jay had rolled him on to the stretcher...

"Any ID on him?" Jay inquired.

"Nothing formal," she said. "Just name-tapes in his clothes."

"Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein?" he quipped, trying to alleviate the tension: hospitals made him edgy and gloomy.

She laughed. "Hardly! Just the sort schoolkids have! According to these, he's Noah Percy. We're contacting the police to see if he's been reported missing, and to trace his folks. I guess _you_'ll be wanting to speak to the police about him, too – about trespassing?"

Jay hesitated before replying. "Um, no... No. Bringing charges, publicity - that might encourage more kids to try to get in. The Foundation's not keen on that. There's unique plant life in there, endangered wildlife..."

"Besides, when he wakes up, he should've learned his lesson," added Kevin.

The doctor smiled wryly. "That's true enough: it'll certainly be a while before he's playing games again! We'll be keeping him sedated until he can breathe unaided. Shall we call you, to keep you updated on his progress?"

Both Rangers nodded, and Jay gave her his card.

"I'll let you know when he's well enough for visitors."

* * *

The Percys had brought Noah's rocking chair inside from the porch: now it stood forlorn beside the fire. Edward Walker was leaning on the back of it as Robert's voice droned on, flat with despair. 

"It was easy to keep my tools out of reach when he was smaller. Never thought he'd get so much taller than me... Never thought he'd find my knife..."

Vivian, beside her husband on the settle, was clutching a worn stuffed toy she had knitted for Noah when he was a baby. She had meant it to be a teddy-bear, but it more closely resembled a rabbit. (She was a prolific, but less than competent knitter.) It had just turned out all wrong somehow. Like her boy, she thought: her beautiful, damaged son who had never outgrown his toys. His bedroom was still cluttered with the painted wooden animals Robert had carved for him over the years. She had not the heart yet to put them away, to entomb them in the black box.

"- Sometimes it was as if he were playing hide-and-seek with us: he'd try to make us chase him deeper into the forest instead of back home," Robert went on. "I only wanted to stop him, to frighten him - But I never thought..."

"What do you mean ?" asked Walker.

"The _animals_: as a warning to him, to all the children. I was so afraid for him... I thought one or two would send the message; but no, he was still wandering off..."

Vivian looked up, startled: she had suspected nothing, feared even that it had been Noah's work – though how could it have been, given his short attention-span, his sensitivity? And she had tucked him into bed herself, the evening of Kitty and Christop's wedding-party. "_You_? You, Robert? Not _him_?"

"I wanted to keep him _safe_, Vivian! I was terrified we would _lose_ him, he was getting so adventurous, so bold in exploring... I spoke with Tom Clack: he and Susan were so worried... While Vivian and I went to Kitty's wedding... But the costume – The floorboards wouldn't stay down level - That must have been how he realised... I'm so sorry..."

"I _do_ realise how hard this is for you," Walker said. "But – it is, in truth, a mercy: a blessed release, under the circumstances."

Vivian's fingernails dug deep into the toy's misshapen little body. Alice Hunt still has _her_ son, she thought bitterly; _you_ still have your daughter, your daughter who killed _my son_...

"But you promised us a decent burial for him," Robert said reproachfully.

The other man shook his head. "I am _so_ sorry: the coyotes... I-I do not wish to say more, you understand? Victor and August will confirm it. There was nothing anyone could have done: nothing."

Lies, all lies: concealing lies, consoling lies. And still the rocking chair was empty.

* * *

Noah did not like being dead, not really. It had taken some days before he realised that he _was_ dead - days of quiet drowsiness, not fully aware of his changed surroundings. Gradually he realised that he was lying in a warm bed, in a bright room that smelled like pine-trees in damp weather. People dressed in white - many of them women - would appear out of nowhere, wafting through the white curtains that surrounded him. They had no wings, but he was fairly sure that they were angels, like Pastor Nicholson talked about at the meeting-house. Sometimes they were kind: keeping him clean and comfortable, and gently bathing and dressing his wounds. At other times, they poked and prodded and stuck him with needles and tubes – painful, despite the general dulling of his senses. But then, he had hurt Lucius _and_ had stolen a Creature's skin from where they had hidden the other animals', so he figured that this was his punishment. 

It hurt when they took the tubes away, too. His throat felt dry, raw; he tried to cough, but almost passed out because of the pain in his side. They gave him some water to drink. He lay quiet and still - more still than in his whole life, because his body was so tired and sore.

Later (he was unsure of the passing of time, for it never seemed to get completely dark), one of the angels, a plump one with a brown face and hair like a black lamb's, washed him, and shaved him with a strange kind of razor, nothing like the one Papa used on him at home.

Then she held up the mirror before him: "There! That looks better, don't it?"

He recognised his own face, wan and narrow amid long brown hair, but said nothing.

She then began checking the dressing on hisright side, over the wound where one of the tubes had been. He tried to push her hands away.

"Keep still, honey! You'll tear your stitches!"

"I want to go home," he muttered, his voice hoarse.

"When you're better."

"No, now!" He struggled up on one elbow, but she held him back. "Fed up being dead - don't like it!"

She smiled. "_Dead_? You're not _dead_ - you're in hospital."

He looked at her blankly: what and where was 'hospital'?

"Don't you remember? You had an accident in the forest."

He recalled running after Ivy, trying to catch her, then the ground giving way beneath his feet... "I fell down a hole. And I died."

"You fell, and bumped your head, and hurt your ribs and shoulders. But your friend told the Park Rangers, and they found you and brought you here. You're real lucky!"

He did not know what 'Park Rangers' were, and he certainly did not feel very lucky.

"You're Noah Percy, is that right?"

His eyes narrowed: "Who said?"

"It's written inside your clothes."

"Oh. Mama did that."

Something in his child-like speech and expression confirmed to the nurse Dr Morelli's speculations soon after his admission: that he had a learning impairment of some kind. It had not been simply the name-tapes sewn into his clothing, although that seemed odd enough in a young man who was past school-age. But 'R' and 'L' painted inside his shoes...?

"My name's Verna Trent; I've been looking after you," she said. "Do you live with your Mama?"

"Yes. And Papa."

"And where do you live?"

"Our village."

"But what's it called?"

He had to think about that for a couple of minutes. "Covington."

"_No_, honey," Verna corrected him gently, "that's where you were _found_: Covington Woods."

"Where I fell down the hole."

"That's right. But you don't _live_ there."

"'Course we don't _live_ in a _hole_," he answered, his green-gold eyes wide in earnest. "We live in a _house_."

"I _mean_, there's _no_ village there. It's a _wildlife park_ - just full of animals. Remember? You shouldn't have been there, but you were dressed up and playing a game."

His thin face brightened into a smile, and he waved his hands feebly. "Yes! Yes! Playing games! The Stump Game! I want to go back home and play!"

"Yes, but first you must rest and get strong. And we need to tell your Mama and Papa that you're safe, but we can't, because we don't know where they live."

"But I told you!" he frowned. "Told you!"

She sighed. "Never mind! I shouldn't be getting you to talk too much yet, anyway. I'll let the doctor know you're properly awake!"

She patted his hand, and disappeared through the curtain.

The doctor: that would be Dr Crane, coming to take him home, he thought. He felt much happier now, and nestled into the pillow.

_**To be continued:** Noah makes more new friends and a few discoveries..._


	5. That Chile Ain't Right

**5: 'That Chile Ain't Right'**

So, after several days under sedation, the boy from the park was at last fully conscious. "How is he, then?" asked Teresa Morelli, clipping her stethoscope around her neck.

"Pretty good," Verna replied. "No fever, and the wounds are healing cleanly. You were right about him, though, doctor."

"In what way?"

"As my Momma would have said, 'That chile ain't right'. He _is_ just a child - how he talks, how he looks at you. How his folks could let him go off in the woods...!" She sighed.

"Right... When he's stronger, I'll ask Dr Graham for a psychological assessment. Still no idea where he's from?"

"No. He just says where he was found. There's no word from the police?"

"No-one of his name or description has been reported missing. The only people who've phoned asking about him are the Rangers! There's another thing, though, about his clothes: not the Wolf Man outfit, but the shirt - what was left of it, the trousers, shoes..."

"Yeah - they were kind of strange - home-made, old-fashioned," Verna remembered.

"The police think it may be a lead. They'll be making enquiries - tactfully - with traditionalist communities: Plain Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, and so on. They don't like to draw attention to themselves, so it's just possible..."

"A mighty long buggy-ride from the Preserve, though! There's none of them for miles in this county. And I don't imagine they'd take kindly to kids dressing up as werewolves!"

"...Not even a werewolf crossed with Little Red Riding Hood!" added Teresa, recalling Noah's preposterous fancy-dress.

* * *

Verna returned with another white-coated woman, who wore black tubes with a shiny silver disc around her neck and carried lots of papers of some kind. "Here's the doctor, just like I promised," she said.

Noah wailed in disappointment and covered his face with his hands, in the hope that this might make him invisible. He had expected Dr Crane, not this sharp-looking lady who must be some sort of Elder.

"Hey, hey!" Verna said, putting her arm around him. "Don't be frightened! This is Dr Morelli: she's been keeping an eye on you since your operation."

"You're _not_ the doctor!" he said, peering warily between his fingers.

The woman smiled, and suddenly looked less stern. "I've been to see you nearly every day! You've been sleeping, that's why you don't remember."

"I want Dr Crane!" he said fretfully.

"Is that your doctor at home, Noah?" asked Verna.

He nodded.

"Well, we'll see if we can call him." (This could be another clue, the nurse thought, or else he's seen too much _Frasier_ on TV somewhere...)

"- Meanwhile, you'll have to put up with _me_, won't you?" said Dr Morelli, sitting down at his bedside. "You've been very brave!"

"Not brave. I was asleep," he answered with simple honesty.

"We gave you medicines to keep you asleep, because you were injured, and it wouldn't have been good to feel it."

"It still hurts, though."

"I know, but you're getting better now."

She put two ends of the tubes in her ears, and placed the round, shiny end on his thin, bruised chest. It felt cold. "Now, Noah, just you take a big, deep breath... as deep as you can manage... Good boy..."

Then she moved the shiny piece around on to his back, below the dressings on his shoulder-blades, and listened again. He realised that it must be like the bigger set of tubes that Dr Crane used whenever you had a cough.

The doctor scribbled something in a notebook, then gave him a reassuring smile. "There! That wasn't too bad, was it? Your chest sounds much better. We'll soon have you out of here!"

"Where's 'here'?"

"The County Hospital."

"What's 'hospital'?"

"It's where people who are sick, or have had accidents, as you did, come to be cared for. So you've never been to hospital before?"

He shook his head. "No. Where are the trees?"

"What trees?"

He sniffed the disinfectant-scented air, and coughed. "Pine trees."

Verna tried not to laugh. "It's not trees, honey; it's floor-cleaner!"

He looked, and thought; then he thought some more, all the while twisting a lock of wavy brown hair between his delicate fingers. At length, he asked, frowning suspiciously: "Is _this_ The Towns?"

"We're in _a_ town," replied Verna. "Walkerville, Walker County."

The boy's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands. "Mr Walker! Ivy!"

"Well, it's a pretty common name," explained Dr Morelli. "Many years ago, there were some real wealthy people called Walker who owned factories and land around here, so it was called after them. But they don't live here any more."

"Ivy Walker is my friend!" Noah went on, not really understanding what she had said. "Didn't mean to scare her but she ran away... Then she played the Stump Game and cheated, so I fell."

"So this was the girl you were playing with in the forest?" asked the doctor. She wrote something else in her notebook.

"Yes. She ran away. Maybe 'cause I hit Lucius before, I don't know..."

"Is he another friend you play games with?"

He nodded, then - as if changing his mind - shook his head, then nodded again.

"Ivy went for help," Verna explained. "That's how the Rangers found you. But I guess she didn't stick around in case she got into trouble."

"They don't like people going into the Preserve on account of the wild creatures," added Dr Morelli.

This, at least, was something Noah understood. "I know!" he said. "Creatures are strange! They chase me, but they never catch me. Then they take their skins off and change back to Elders."

"What did you say?"

"- Only I found a skin and put it on, but I shouldn't have, so I fell. Because I was doing a bad thing. And the cloak was the Bad Colour."

"_Bad_ colour?"

"Yes!" He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Bad Colour. Like when it hurts. The Bad Colour comes out."

"_Red_, you mean?"

"Shhh! Don't _say_! Brings the Creatures. I thought it was funny, but I'm sorry now... truly sorry!" He began to sniff, his face and hands twitching.

"It's OK, honey!" said Verna, stroking his hair. "There are no creatures here!"

Dr Morelli was discomfited by his distress; then she had an idea. "Do you want me to show you a special picture?"

Noah nodded. She opened a large brown envelope among her papers, and drew out a translucent sheet.

It was like a magic lantern slide, or one of the glass plates that Mr Walker used on grand occasions to make pictures in his camera. But it was much bigger and made of thinner material. When she held it up in front of the light, Noah gasped in wonder. He could make out white shapes, resembling parts of an animal's skeleton (he had found those in the woods), but larger. A bit like the front of a Creature, he thought.

"Do you know what this is?"

He shook his head. "Dead animal?"

"It's a picture of _you_: it's _inside_ you, here" - and she pointed to his chest.

"But how...?" Then he remembered the animals in the village, the raw soreness of his shoulders, the stitched hole in his side: "Did you take my skin off?"

"No: we used a camera with a special light that can shine through you. These bones broke when you fell, see?" She indicated three of the white lines on the picture. "One of them got pushed inward and hurt you badly - stopping you breathing properly. But the picture helped us know what to fix, to make you better."

He grinned. "Clever!"

"Isn't it? We'll need to take a few more special pictures, to find out how you're getting on: is that OK? "

"Will it hurt?"

"No. I'll arrange an appointment with the department. Meanwhile, you must get your strength back - rest, and have plenty to eat!"

"I _am_ hungry!"

"_That_ is a healthy sign, for sure!" said Verna.

And Dr Morelli, gathering up her folders and pictures and notebooks, smiled kindly.

* * *

Noah felt much better the next day, and was alert to all the new sights and experiences around him. He thought that taking the special pictures, which were called 'X-Rays', was _very_ exciting, although the man working the camera did not know what to say when he asked whether it would show what he was thinking, if he stuck his head in it. But he liked the chair on wheels best. He rode in that along lots of corridor, because Nurse Verna said it was quite a long walk to the X-Ray Department, and would tire him out. (Hospital was easily as big as the whole village, he realised.) She got cross, though, on the way back, when he started to shriek because he saw a woman in a dressing gown of the Bad Colour. "Bad Colour! Creature!" he had screamed. Nurse Verna told Doctor, and _she_ told him that it was not a nice game to play any more. 

"It's not a game!" he insisted.

But she peered at him over the rim of her spectacles, and told him that it upset other people. Well, it would not be his fault if they did not listen, and the Creatures came to get them...

* * *

Soon, he was strong enough to walk about in his room and to the bathroom without getting tired, and Nurse showed him how everything worked. He did not understand how water could come out of the wall already hot, without anyone going to the pump with a bucket to fetch it, or boiling it in a kettle on a stove or in a pot over a fire. As for the water-closet... Hospital was a very mysterious place, all right, he thought, after a whole _fascinating_ hour watching the water come and go as he repeatedly flushed it. 

"Noah, will you come out of there? You have a visitor!" Verna announced.

He sloped out of the bathroom, tall and gaunt in his hospital pyjamas and a blue checked dressing gown so wide that it wrapped around him almost twice. (It had been donated to the hospital's charity box when its owner had died on another ward, but Verna had not told him that.) She helped him back to bed, so that the visitor could occupy the adjacent armchair.

The visitor was a dark-haired young man, perhaps about the same age as Lucius, but slighter in build. "Um... Hi!" he said, with a nervous smile. "Remember me? Or maybe not... I'm Kevin - Ranger Lupinski. I found you, when you fell. Your friend Ivy had told me someone was hurt..."

"So what do you say to him, Noah?" Verna prompted.

"Thank you, Mr Ranger Lupinski," he said in that sing-song tone small children adopt when they know they _ought_ to thank someone, without really being sure why, and have been taught the words by rote.

"We - Jay and me - we were really worried about you. It's good to see you looking well! Are they taking care of you here?"

Noah did not reply. Small talk was not something he understood, and something was preying on his mind... "Have you seen Ivy?" he asked.

"No, no, I haven't, since... Hasn't she called you, or visited?"

"No," he said mournfully.

"Oh, that's too bad!" Kevin tried to sound flippant, but he was not a little perturbed. What kind of friend _was_ this girl...? Theboy had learning disabilities, had been seriously injured: surely any decent friend would have wanted to find out how he was. And where were the parents, for God's sake?

"I know. I did a bad thing, but... If you see her..." Noah faltered.

"You want me to tell her you're OK?"

He nodded eagerly. "I want to go home. Tell her I want to go home. Tell my Mama and Papa..."

"_They_ don't know you're here either?"

He shook his head. "No. _Nobody_ knows. Nobody goes to The Towns. Not for years and years and years and years."

"So where are they, then?"

"Our village. Like I told Nurse and Doctor, but they couldn't find them."

Verna explained: "He's kind of confused about the name of the village he comes from, and the place you found him."

"Covington Woods?" Kevin said.

"- Is _home_," Noah interjected.

The nurse shrugged expressively.

"Look," said the young Ranger, "I'll see what I can do. Your friend Ivy knows where to find me. If she _does_ contact the Ranger Station, I'll let you know. I promise! And I'll come and see you again!"

* * *

Over the next few days, Noah had more adventures, which he was determined to remember so that he could tell Mama, Papa, and Ivy when he got home. Meeting Dr Graham, a kindly Elder with grey hair, was even better than the special X-pictures. He played games with him, using picture-books and puzzles and words and numbers, and let him play with lots of toys, some of which made sounds and could move by themselves. (He did not know what all of them were meant to be, though, and it upset him that some were the Bad Colour.) Then there were the questions about school, which were much less fun... 

"Have you been to school?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you like it there?"

He shook his head slowly. "Not much."

"Why not?"

"Teacher - Mr Walker - says I get things wrong... Don't like sitting still. And the other children... they call me names and laugh. Mama says I shouldn't listen, but I can't _not_ hear. She tells me not to hit them because I'm bigger."

"Do you hit the other children often?"

He bowed his head in shame, and pulled at the cuffs of his dressing gown. "Only when they pick on me, call me 'stupid' and 'crazy'... Sometimes they all gather round, and there's more of them, and I get scared and cry... And they lock me in the Quiet Room."

"What's the Quiet Room, Noah?"

"It's just... Nothing. And I have to stay quiet. 'S horrid."

Dr Graham was disturbed by what he was hearing, but could not let Noah see that. "Do you have any friends?" he asked gently.

"Only Ivy. And Lucius. But they don't like me now, no. Mama said he wouldn't be letting her play with me any more, so I hit him. Ivy made me promise not to strike with sticks, so I didn't. It was Papa's tools... And still all the Bad Colour came out, then he went asleep, and I was sorry, but they put me in the Quiet Room and Ivy hit me... Then I put the Creature's skin on and ran away, and then - Then she ran away too. And I wanted us to play again, but... She cheated and I fell."

* * *

Later, in the staff canteen, Teresa discussed Noah's case with the psychologist. It was unusual in their experience, not for his injuries or even his mental difficulties, but for the fact that he seemed to have materialised out of nowhere. Where did he come from? Who was responsible for him? Where would he go when he was well? Someone had to think about these issues. 

"I've recommended that he stay in a private ward," she said. "It's too soon for him to have to deal with questions from other patients. This game of 'good' and 'bad' colours, for starters: Verna says that when he passed a patient in a red dressing-gown along the corridor, he started shrieking his head off!"

"Yeah, you're right," Dave Graham answered. "He's not prepared for that kind of interaction. He knows almost nothing of the outside world. I've shown him picture-books and toys, and he's baffled by something as simple as a toy car. He recognises animals, but nothing mechanical. Yet how did he end up at that Preserve? It's miles from anywhere!"

She could not explain that, and did not even try. "So you agree he may be from an Amish or Plain Quaker type community, then?" she went on.

"Of a very isolated kind. Unless his family's simply kept him secluded because of his disability. Even in less traditionalist communities, there can still be stigma attached to having a child with any kind of mental handicap. By the sound of it, they just locked him in a room or cupboard when he misbehaved."

"Poor boy! About his disability: how severe...?"

"While he clearly has a learning difficulty, with some degree of attention deficit, he's alert and inquisitive enough," Dave said. "At present, it's difficult to assess how far his condition has been affected by his environment and lack of appropriate education. But from my conversations with him - the way he talks about 'Creatures' and transformations - he evidently can't separate this fantasy game, or whatever it was his friends involved him in, from reality."

"Some friends!" Teresa commented with sarcasm, and bit fiercely into her Danish pastry.

"Yeah, well... Kids like him are easy to take advantage of - rope into a game, have a laugh at their expense. He admits that he reacts to bullying - hits out. Seems to have knocked some other kid out recently, if I translated him right. But one sees this all the time: others think it's funny to provoke a reaction, so create a behavioural cycle."

"But what do we do with him?" she said. "How do we help him? Physically, he's making an excellent recovery, but we can't find his family or his home, so we've no data on his insurance status. Do you know what I'm afraid of?" she asked rhetorically. "If he has no place to go when he's discharged. He wouldn't last five minutes on the street!"

"I'll see if any strings can be pulled - any of my contacts in education and social services. So many cut-backs over the years, homes closing down... Trouble is, he's too old for most of the schools, and too young to be stuck in some nursing home full of Alzheimer's cases..." He stirred his coffee, thinking, thinking...

Bodies, not minds, were Teresa's field; her knowledge of the special educational needs schools in the county was sketchy. "You say 'most of' the schools. You mean there are a few ?"

"I might as well have said 'all'! Limebank takes older kids - teens through to early twenties, but... it's small - not many residential places."

"But worth a try?"

"Sure: I can give Ros Bannatyne a call, but... I wouldn't want to build up hopes..."

_**To be continued:** Lucius is also on the mend; and Dave and Kevin are helpful again..._


	6. What Ivy Knew, & Jay Did Not

**_Author's Note:_ **This chapter and those that follow are dedicated to Rosemary, Kay, Mike and my other friends who have worked in education for young people with Special Needs. Noah's phrase about Ivy's eyes are derived from a young lad I knew with learning difficulties, who could not grasp blindness or deafness as concepts, so referred to blind or deaf people as having 'sore eyes' or 'sore ears' that didn't work.

**6: What Ivy Knew, and Jay Did Not**

Rain battered against the windows of the Widow Hunt's house. Ivy heard it as grey; Lucius, sitting in a chair by the stove, a patchwork quilt tucked around him, saw that it was: the grey, cold rain of November, lashing the clapboard houses, soaking the earth of the village.

He was mending now, although the medicines had left him feeling drained and exhausted. (Dr Crane said this was not uncommon.) Ivy had scarce left his side throughout his illness. He was grateful for that, and yet he noticed that something had changed in her, particularly when his mother was near, or if her father or any of the other Elders chanced to visit. Ivy had always been frank and open in her speech and manner, he thought. Now he sensed that she had become somehow guarded, cautious.

Was it simply that their ordeal had made her more grown-up, he wondered – more like himself? He would be sorry indeed if she lost her vitality, her boldness – everything that made some of the village matrons deem her 'hoydenish', or 'mighty unladylike for a schoolmaster's daughter'.

Perhaps it had been the cost of her quest: her fears for his life; her perilous journey; the news, on her return, that Noah had been abducted and slain by the Creatures.

This last event had struck him, too, with ambivalent feelings that he could not explain to his mother, to whom it had come almost as a relief.

He remembered, clear and sharp as if it were yesterday, the distraught boy weeping in the doorway of his workshop; the blows of the knife which came when he tried to give comfort. Grounds enough for hate, and yet…

It _was_ Noah, after all: the mooncalf, too simple in his love and hate and jealousy, uncomprehending of the harm he had done.

Lucius, like all in the village, had heard from his mother and Dr Crane the cause of the tragedy: Vivian Percy's well-meant, but ill-chosen words to Noah about Ivy's betrothal. That Noah should not expect Ivy to play with him any more; that she was to become a married lady; that Lucius would think it unseemly for her to romp around with him at foot-races or hide-and-seek, and would be cross about it.

If only he and Ivy had told Noah their good news first, as a friend and in words which he could have understood and wherein he would have seen no threat to his friendship with them both…

If only Noah had been watched, and kept away from his father's tools, as any young child should have been…

And, in the end, if only he had not been imprisoned alone in the Quiet Room. Lucius tried not to imagine the Creatures scrabbling like rats at the floorboards; clawing their way up; the boy's utter terror as they dragged him through the window – No, despite his own suffering, he would never have wished such a fate on Noah!

"What are you thinking?" asked Ivy. She was perched on a low stool beside him, her bright head leaning against his knee.

He sighed. "Nothing of much import…"

"When you say that, I know you mean _quite_ the opposite."

"Perhaps."

"Then will you tell me, pray?"

He paused. "Ivy… What you did – your journey – Since you returned, I fancy it has changed you."

Her lips parted, as if she were about to speak. She clasped her hands together. But she did not answer.

"Ivy?"

"Lucius, I am afraid…"

"You were never afraid. "

She raised her head and listened, alert, like a deer trying to catch any sound, poised to run in case of danger. "When is your mother expected to return from the meeting-house?"

"Not for an hour or more. Surely you do not fear my mother?"

"I think I fear _all_ the Elders," she said simply.

"But why…?"

She shook her head. "I should not say it. I must not say it. I ought not even think it. And yet –"

Although she could not see him, she felt his gaze upon her, even as she felt his hand upon her hair. She heard the steady breathing that, like his gentle voice, had, for her, a pure golden colour – which she would never tell.

"Lucius, if I were to tell you, would you swear to speak not a word to _anyone_?"

"I swear it, but…"

"_Not even_ your mother."

His lips parted.

"It is because of my father, Lucius. I no longer trust in him. Indeed, I have no faith in any but you, now. Their colours are changed, and my father's most of all."

"What mean you by that?"

"I do not know truth from falsehood in his voice any more. There are… lies here. But I fancy that is known to you."

He frowned until his dark brows almost met. His first thought was that she suspected the secret sympathy between his mother and her father - a thing he knew to be outlawed by scripture and custom.

Ivy struggled to find the right words. Usually fluent, she now seemed to weigh every syllable. "I found kindness where he told me I would find only hate and cruelty. And I have been within the Old Shed That Must Not Be Used…"

"How? When?" – For he knew it was a forbidden place, unsafe, too close to the boundary line besides.

"When I set out to The Towns for medicines, my father first took me there. There are _things_ hanging there, Lucius. Bodies or skins of Those We Don't Speak Of. He told me not to scream, and made me touch them, smell them. Fur, like a dog's. Claws and spines and feathers. And cloaks of fine cloth. He said it was the Bad Colour, but it felt warm and good."

"But why?"

Ivy twisted her hands in her lap. "He told me that Those We Don't Speak Of were not real."

"How can that be?"

"He said that these were guises, worn by the Elders in farce - to make us afraid of venturing beyond the Line. He said my grandfather was killed in The Towns, by cruel treachery of a friend, and that before the Elders came here, seeking refuge, he had read Indian tales of strange Creatures in these woods. But that these were… tales only."

Lucius stared in astonishment. "That is a grave matter, if it be true…"

"I no longer know what _is_ the truth," she said, "for _then_, on my return, he told me that he had _lied_ about the farce to guard me from fear, and that these hanging _things_ were hides of dead Creatures, from a time before the Truce."

"Yet - we were always told - that when the Elders first came here, the Creatures helped them, became their protectors…" He could not imagine that Ivy would speak any falsehood; but that her father would – that, too, was unthinkable. For all the secrets in the place, Edward Walker was an honourable man. Of course, her sightlessness might mean that she had not perceived all that her father had tried to 'show' her. "Is it possible," he wondered, speaking more quietly than ever, "that _both_ may be true?"

"Both?"

He was troubled, but did his best to try to reconcile the accounts. "_If_ the Elders kept the hides of slain Creatures, perhaps that is why the Creatures skinned _our _animals, in revenge. And if the Elders sometimes wear the skins – may that be to stalk or watch the Creatures unseen?" (He was recalling a steel engraving in a schoolbook: Indians, disguised in hides, stalking buffalo.) "And after you slew a Creature, they slew Noah."

She shook her head, her hair gleaming like amber in the lantern's glow. "No… No… My father's colour is changed – is wrong - when he speaks of Noah! When he called the meeting, and said Noah was devoured... I cannot believe it!"

"I, too, did not want to believe it," he said.

"It is not that I do not _want_ to – for it makes me afraid, Lucius, to think otherwise. For if he is not dead, what can have become of him?"

"But your father is an honest man, a good man. What reason would he have to lie about that? Dr Crane and the Pastor – they were with him, Mother said. They, too, are good men. Why would they let Noah's parents believe him dead, if he were yet living?"

"I cannot explain it: I only feel it, Lucius. I feel it _here_." She placed her hand on her heart.

"Dr Crane told me we must hope he is in a better place. We must have _faith_, Ivy – and hope. I cannot believe that the Elders would wilfully –"

Ivy shivered. "Lucius, when you are strong again… please help me find him!"

* * *

At the hospital, Dave Graham had spent a couple more hours with the Percy boy, assessing his literacy and understanding through a simple book about the adventures of a puppy called Patch. It had been an emotionally exhausting experience. When Patch became lost in the park, Noah had begun to panic, saying that he would be skinned by big creatures with claws. (This confirmed what had been suspected all along: that the youth was unable to distinguish his fantasy game from either fiction or reality.) The happy ending, when Patch was reunited with his child-owner and his parents, had also distressed him by reminding him of his own abandoned plight. To quieten him, Dave had let him take a Garfield toy back to his room. Poor kid, he thought. Something has to be done with him… 

He picked up the phone, and dialled Limebank School.

"Hi, it's Dr David Graham, Walker County Hospital. Is Ms Bannatyne available?"

Several bars of operetta music (it may have been the overture to _Gräfin Mariza_) played down the line while the secretary transferred him to the Principal's extension.

Presently he heard the familiar voice with its distinctive accent - nearly twenty years of New York and several of Pennsylvania, but still with an undercurrent of Morningside: "Rosalie Bannatyne here; how may I help you?"

"Hi, Ros – it's Dave Graham. How are you doing?"

"Dave! Haven't heard from you in ages! I'm fine - So what are you up to?"

"I need to know how you're fixed for residential places at the moment?"

"That's a leading question if ever I heard one. Why?"

"I've got a bit of a puzzle on my hands."

"What sort of puzzle?"

"A six feet tall, twenty-ish-going-on-six sort of puzzle. His name's Noah Percy. He was in an accident at the Walker Wildlife Preserve."

"An accident?"

"Yeah: he was messing around in the woods with a friend - Halloween or role-playing games - and had a bad fall: the Rangers found him. Broken ribs, pneumothorax, cuts and bruises. Dr Morelli says his concussion didn't seem severe at the time, but the shock's left him pretty confused – that on top of his learning disabilities. No-one can trace his parents or home yet, so he's going to need a place to stay once he's fully healed."

"Hmm… We've not had anyone of that name, at least not since I've been here. I'll check the back-files."

"He's… an _interesting_ kid."

"How 'interesting'?"

"He seems to have been kept in seclusion, probably in a 'plain-living' community, but can't say where. All he remembers is where he was found. His clothes were old-fashioned, kind of Amish-looking – but he speaks English only. Modern technology is new to him. He said his parents used to lock him up in some sort of empty room when he misbehaved: he's certainly lively, possibly even aggressive in the past. And he likes toy animals."

There was a momentary silence at the other end of the telephone. Then he heard the woman murmur: "White wooden horse..."

"Pardon? – No, I've given him a Garfield to play with."

"Sorry, I was just thinking aloud… So what do you want me to do?"

"If you think you can fit him in somewhere, I'd much appreciate it if you could come and meet him first."

"Sure."

"That would be good. You have a room, then?"

"We prefer to keep two or three spare for respite care for the day kids, but in a case like this… if he's nowhere to go... Yes, I'll call by."

"Thanks! How soon?"

* * *

Noah was as oblivious of the plans being made for his future as he was of most things outside his own child-like world. He was happily playing with the toy Dr Graham had let him take back to his room. Dr Graham told him it was a cat, although it did not look much like a cat. But then, at home, he always went to sleep cuddling Bear, who did not look like a bear. Mama had made Bear when he was very little, and she used to get upset if he said it was a bunny, because it had funny long ears and a round back. Perhaps it was a bear turned into a bunny, he thought – the way Elders turned into Creatures. Mr Walker had explained at school that tadpoles turned into frogs. Noah liked frogs, because they jumped about and croaked, and sometimes squealed when you picked them up. Yes – lots of creatures changed into other things, when you thought about it. 

But the Cat was a bright colour, brighter even than Ivy Walker's hair - almost the Bad Colour. It had round eyes, too, a little scary, not like any animal he had ever seen. But it was soft, so soft. Not like the animal skins he had found under the floor of the Quiet Room; not like the Creature's skin he had put on. He curled up in the armchair, hugging it until Ranger Kevin visited again.

"Hi, Noah! You're looking better every time I see you! Hey, where did you get Garfield?"

"Garfield?"

He pointed to the toy. "The cat. That's his name."

"Oh. Dr Graham said I could play with him. Is he yours?"

Kevin looked puzzled. "No; why?"

"But you know his name."

"Sure – _everyone_ knows Garfield; he's in books, films… That's a famous cat you have there!"

Noah's eyes widened. He wasn't sure what 'famous' meant, but it sounded kind of important.

But his prime concern was unchanging: "Have you seen Ivy? Or Mama and Papa?"

"I'm real sorry, Noah… Not yet. But I'm sure we will!" In fact, he had never been less sure of anything in his life, but he had to keep the lad's spirits up. "Do you want me to leave a message for Ivy?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"But where should I leave it?"

"Covington," Noah said.

Kevin wrote quickly, on a scrap of paper from his pocket-book:

_Dear Ivy –  
I found your friend Noah Percy. He's now in Walker County Hospital. He had surgery, and is recovering. Please tell his Mom and Dad where he is: no-one at the hospital knows where to contact them. He'd really like a visit or a call from you, too, if you can.  
best wishes,  
Kevin Lupinski (Park Ranger)_

and appended his phone number. He then folded it up and wrote _IVY WALKER_ in block letters on the outside, and showed it to Noah.

"Is that all right?"

"Uh-huh," Noah nodded, stroking Garfield Cat's head. "But Ivy can't read."

"She _can't_ ?"

"She can't see. She has sore eyes, and can't see. So she can't read." He held up his head proudly. "_I_ can read – a little bit!"

Kevin tried to take in what Noah was saying. His mysterious friend was _blind_? Although the circumstances of Noah's rescue had displaced his initial memories of meeting Ivy, he still recalled her distant gaze. At the time, he had wondered if she were spaced out on drugs. But _blind_? How could she have found her way around the forest? He could not believe it.

"She hears colours, though," Noah continued, as if it were an entirely commonplace attribute.

"But the message…?"

"They'll read it to her when they find it." He seemed quite confident of that.

* * *

The following morning, while on patrol, Kevin scaled the fence at the point where it had been repaired after the boy's rescue. He followed the gravel track through the trees until he reached the hole where he had found him. In full daylight, he could see it clearly for what it was: a hollow left by the uprooted tree, dug out further by human hands to make it deeper and more regular in shape. 

But something was different. The rain and sleet had caused a partial mudslide. Other people had been there, treading down the undergrowth which, at this season, had not grown back.

Perhaps Ivy had returned, looking for her friend?

He had wrapped the letter in a small, clear plastic envelope, to protect it from rain or snow. He wedged it in a crevice of the tree-stump, so that it was visible, but would not easily be dislodged by weather or animals. (He felt guilty about the wrapping – it could scarce be regarded as environmentally friendly, but he hoped that no small creature would try to eat it or suffocate in it.)

He hurried back to the track, remembering how he and Jay had struggled along it in darkness, carrying a stretcher…

"Where've you been?" asked Jay, when he reported back to the Ranger Station.

"Checking on the fence repair. No-one's tried to get in."

His boss sighed. "That's good. I'm glad the kid's getting better: it would have been tricky if…"

"If he'd been left lying there much longer?"

"The Foundation hates publicity, but sure, if we'd had a death on our hands, I don't see how we could have stopped it… Hell, I don't even want to think about it! Lupinski, you did well – though you shouldn't have gone in there in the first place! That forest is dangerous. I figure there must be dozens of those pits!"

"Old wolf-traps?"

"Maybe not so old. Maybe not for wolves. I don't know."

"But why? What are they protecting?"

Jay did not answer.

"What are _we_ protecting?"

Jay shrugged. "I can't say. I don't know for sure, and even if I did, I guess I wouldn't be allowed to say."

"You said the Foundation had stopped planes flying over –"

"Look, I try not to ask questions: it makes life easier, dealing with the Foundation. And if you don't, it'd make my life easier, too."

"Is there something you're afraid of?"

"Afraid? Me?" He shook his head. "Just want to keep my job. All I know is that it's been this way for, what? twenty-five years or more. Old James Walker was big in industry; political influence, too."

"You think it's government…?"

He sighed. "Lupinski, you're making me _talk_ about this!"

"I won't say anything outside this office!"

"Well, let's just say you know what _that_ W stands for…"

"_Those_ Walkers?"

"Not directly: distant cousins going way back. But still – influence. I'm only guessing – I don't know any more than what I was told when I was taken on here - but I figure – it was after Vietnam, still Cold War – they put military or CIA stuff in there. Surveillance installations, or some kind of test-site."

"Why the Foundation got the airspace protected?"

"Well, it's just my theory."

Kevin nodded. "I've read there were whole cities in Russia that didn't appear on maps because of secret activities!"

"We'd have noticed a _city_! But like I said, I'm just speculating… Say nothing: we don't want any Roswell-type crap…"

Kevin pondered the conversation as he patrolled the perimeter fence again later that day. Cold War radar or satellite installations? It _sounded_ plausible… But somehow he sensed it was wrong. The woods seemed too unspoilt, too tranquil to have been disturbed by 20C technology. Who _was_ the elusive Ivy Walker, and what did she know? He hoped she would return from wherever she had come and find his message soon…

_**To be continued:** Noah finds a new home _


End file.
